Sceptical theism, radical voluntarism and self-defeat

Hi Alex,

The conditional probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given sceptical theism is inscrutable.

This, I'm sure, is way too strong for most skeptical theists to accept. Indeed, most skeptical theists want to quarantine their skepticism to God-justifying goods (for existing evils). The claim is (nearly) always that were there such goods it is likely that we would not know about them. Skeptical theists do not want to impugn the reliability our cognitive capacities generally. Perhaps the clearest evidence for their desire to quarantine their skepticism is the effort to deny moral skepticism. Our ordinary moral assertions are supposed to be reliably based, though not so for our assertions about the non-existence of God-justifying goods (for existing evils). At most, then, skeptical theism is supposed to lower the conditional probability of our cognitive capacities only with regard to certain areas of moral value.

Likewise, if radical voluntarism says that God chooses what is right and wrong and good and bad independently of any prior normative facts

For entirely different reasons, it would be good to know just how much variation in moral standards is possible given a less than radically voluntarist view. It seems clear that at least this much is true: God might coherently apply different standards to the same individual in different worlds. It might be true that God calls you to live one kind of life L1 in one world w1 and to live another life L2 in another w2. In that case your failing to live up to L1 in w2 is no moral failing. Similarly for your failure to live up to L2 in w1. This seems to me like a perfectly coherent form of theistic voluntarism, where God is free (though not radically so) to choose the moral standard to which he holds you.

Mike:

Thanks for pressing me on this. Yes, I agree that sceptical theists want to avoid scepticism. But can they?

According to the sceptical theist, we really have no insight into the kinds of reasons that God has for creating things. I take it that without insight into the kinds of reasons that God has for creating things, we cannot say anything about the ratio of the probabilities P(God creates rational agents whose faculties are reliable) and P(God creates rational agents whose faculties are unreliable).

Another line of argument. It seems essential to the sceptical theist response to the problem of evil that for any actual evil E, P(E occurs|God exists) be inscrutable.

Moreover, our knowledge that this probability is inscrutable is not supposed to be dependent on the particulars of E. If it were dependent on the particulars of E, it would be open for the opponent to say: "Yes, it's inscrutable how likely it is that God would allow mosquito bites, but it is plainly very unlikely that God would allow torture of the innocent to occur."

Furthermore, our knowledge of the claim that P(E|God exists) is inscrutable is not dependent on our knowledge that E occurs. Rather, it is dependent on facts about our ignorance of the structure of value and of the purposes of an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being.

Now consider the evil E1: our doxastic faculties are unreliable. (False belief is an evil!) Can the sceptical theist say that P(E1|God exists) is low? I think not. To do that, the sceptical theist would have to show a relevant difference between E1 and evils like:
E2: Everybody dies.
E3: Almost everybody suffers significant pain for a significant proportion of their lives.
E4: Almost everybody sins gravely.
E5: The Holocaust happened.

The sceptical theist has to say that the conditional probability of E2, E3, E4 and E5 given God's existence is inscrutable. Why should E1 be any different? It's not that E1 is particularly horrendous as compared to E2-E5. In fact, E4 is worse.

One difference is that we think E1 is not actual, while E2-E5 are actual. But the actuality of an evil had nothing to do with the sceptical theist's justification for thinking its conditional probability was inscrutable.

So, the sceptical theist should think that P(E1|God exists) is inscrutable.

After all, consider related cases. Among the actual evils we have is:
E6: Just about everybody is wrong about a number of important things.
One can run the inductive argument from evil based on E6. To respond, the sceptical theist has to say that P(E6|God exists) is inscrutable.

The sceptical theist cannot consider the kinds of evils in E1 and E6 to be outside the scope of the sceptical theist response to the problem of evil. But the difference between E6 and E1 is solely in the prevalence of the evil in question, and the sceptical theist denies the atheistic opponent's contention that the prevalence of evils like pain renders theism unlikely.

Yes, I agree that sceptical theists want to avoid scepticism. But can they?

I of course think no, they can't. But it does take argument to show this. And it might be more difficult to generate the skepticism for things that are more or less value-neutral. Would skeptical theism make me agnostic concerning my beliefs about arithmetic? I'm not sure. But I agree entirely about knowledge of value.

Dear Mike,

I think my argument stands and falls with Plantinga's argument that if P1 is low or inscrutable, then we have no knowledge. I find Plantinga's claim (the conditional one, that if P1 is low or inscrutable, then...) plausible for ordinary empirical knowledge. I find it less plausible for a priori knowledge.

As for variation in moral standards, that is an interesting question. I certainly think God can, and on occasion does, command things, like to rest on Sundays if this is not unreasonable, which go over beyond natural law. It may also be that what in some worlds is only an ideal, in other worlds is positively required.

What is crucial to avoid scepticism is that God not decide whether lying is right or wrong.

I'm having a bit of a hard time following this argument. Dan Howard-Snyder insists, and rightly, that the view should not be called 'skeptical theism' since skepticism about our knowledge of the goods there are and the conditions for the instantiation of the goods we know about is consistent with agnosticism about God's existence and atheism about God's existence. Thus, the name 'skeptical theism' is misleading.

In any case, why think PR(our faculties are reliable/skepticism) is inscrutable? My first worry is that we need to add background knowledge to our evaluation of this claim. Once we do this, I think the claim is false. My second worry is suppose we don't. Skeptics say we know what is right and wrong and can accept that our faculties are perfectly reliable. Dan's got a paper forthcoming on this stuff so look out.

Dan Howard-Snyder insists, and rightly, that the view should not be called 'skeptical theism' since skepticism about our knowledge of the goods there are and the conditions for the instantiation of the goods we know about is consistent with agnosticism about God's existence and atheism about God's existence. Thus, the name 'skeptical theism' is misleading.

Really? HS's reasons for this insistence seem to me implausible. His argument, I'm pretty familiar with it, is that theism is not a kind of skepticism, so the term skeptical theism is mistaken. Not so good. You may as well argue that a party is not a kind of birthday. Therefore it is misleading and wrong to speak of birthday parties.

Mike, the argument you give isn't as good as the one Christian gave. It may be linguistically appropriate to call a view "skeptical theism" if it's not skepticism, but it seems inappropriate to call it that if you can hold the view without being a theist at all. Besides, we're in the early stages of naming, when names can be changed or may not have been settled enough to call it a change.

(1) It is not my argument. It is HS's argument.

(2) It is not at all clear that skeptical theism is a position that non-theists could take. We are skeptical--see Alston, Wykstra, etc.--because God-purposed goods are likely beyond our ken. Difficult to get God-purposed goods w/o God.

Well, non-theists could take a counterfactualized form of sceptical theism: Were there a God, we wouldn't know much about the structure of goods.

Yes. But that is just to say, were theism true, then skeptical theism would be reasonable. That's different from the claim that skeptical atheism is reasonable or that an atheist could reasonably suspend belief on the existence of God-purposed goods.

The counterfactualized sceptical theism seems sufficient (were it true) to undercut the inductive problem of evil. So even if it's not sceptical theism, it can fulfill the same role in the intellectual economy as sceptical theism does, no?

It is not my argument. It is HS's argument.

I never said it was your argument, just that you gave it. How could I possibly think you were inventing an argument that you attributed to someone else and then proceeded to criticize?

I think the position you're calling skeptical theism is a much more restricted thesis than the more general claim that there are inscrutable goods, and I think that's what some here are calling skeptical theism. So maybe it's ok as a term for the more restricted thesis, but I got the sense this discussion was considering the more general thesis, which does seem to me to be independent of theism.

I never said it was your argument

I never said you said it was my argument, just that it was not mine.

. . . but I got the sense this discussion was considering the more general thesis, which does seem to me to be independent of theism.

What general thesis is that? The view I'm discussing is one that we find among most of the (well-known) skeptical theists.

Might I be so bold as to suggest a return to the discussion of the substantive issues, important as it can be to standardize nomenclature?

Alex,

It's important to know what skeptical theism is, I think. Anyway, I still can't see why P2 is supposed to be obvious. I must be missing something important here, since if P2 is obvious, skeptical theism has much bigger problems than I thought it had.

P2 = P(our cognitive faculties are reliable | sceptical theism)

In any case, I agree with Alex and Jeremy. One can be skeptical about our access to goods, be they would-be-God-justifying goods or run-of-the-mill-human justifying goods. That's skepticism, call it value skepticism. Some theists hold this position, but I don't see why that matters. I suppoe we could also create terms of art for skeptical agnostics and skeptical atheists, but I'd rather just have the expression value skeptics, and leave the other qualifications out of the picture.

Like Mike, though, I don't see why should believe P2...We don't think our vision to be unreliable since we can't see electrons.

If sceptical theism is true, probabilities of evils are inscrutable because God might have some purpose beyond our ken for these evils. In particular, God might have some purpose beyond our ken for the evil of our cognitive faculties being unreliable, and the probability of that evil then is inscrutable.

God might have some purpose beyond our ken for the evil of our cognitive faculties being unreliable, and the probability of that evil then is inscrutable.

This argument is asymmetrical to the skeptical theists' argument for unknown goods justifying observed evils. Clearly there are observable moral and natural evils in the world for which there might be some larger purpose. But it is not at all clear that there is this additional evil of unreliable cognitive capacites for which there might be some larger purpose.

Yes, but the sceptical theist's reasons for thinking that we don't know whether there would be unknown goods justifying observed evils do not depend on the fact that these evils are observed.

Yes, but the sceptical theist's reasons for thinking that we don't know whether there would be unknown goods justifying observed evils do not depend on the fact that these evils are observed

You can't mean that. Isn't it obvious that, if there were no observed evils E, the chances that there existed unknown goods justifying E would drop to 0? We know of nothing that needs justifying and we have no reason to believe that there are unknown evils that need justifying. So certainly the observation of such evils is evidence that there are such justifying goods.

This is off topic, but while reading through this thread and the latest one on an argument of Plantinga I found myself becoming increasingly impatient. After some self reflection, I decided the reason for my impatience was that I perceived the conversations I read as being about the same stuff people in this area were talking about 5 years ago. I enjoy political philosophy and ethics, and used to read a bit on the philosophy of religion as well. I was a little curious to see what people were focusing on in this area, having not peeked in awhile, but I see nothing new.

Take Plantinga's argument about the reliability of our cognitive faculties, for example. Plantinga's argument is a derivative version of the following:

We could not be the way we are unless God made us this way. Since we are as we are God must have made us so. (The placing of the P in front of Plantinga's statement just makes for a longer trip into fairy land)

Whether or not you like Plantinga's argument depends on how you feel about the following assertion:

If something is not fully understood we should invoke the supernatural or inexplicable as explanation.

Probably many of you are now thinking to yourselves, this MDA guy just doesn't get it. There is no good reason to rule out mystical explanations, we needs arguments! But conversations of the sort you've been having can just never, never lead anywhere useful.

Suppose Plantinga is right. Allowing arguments from ignorance to convince us opens the door to any such argument. Accept Plantinga's drivel and the next thing you know you'll find yourself starting to think Bush is a great president, that the surge is working, or that American exceptionalism is self-evident. What we need are explanations that have utility, not groundless speculation. Supposing that God did make us this way tells us nothing as to why or how. What insight would buying into Plantinga's argument offer us? God is the best explanation, so some dude that lived long ago might have been right (take your pick among dudes), so we should listen to that dude's suggestions, maybe? Don't you see that this kind of (un)reasoning at its core helps to prop up worldly authorities as unquestionable? Behold, I am the great oracle of Dude! I will tell you how to live! For the love of Dude, people! Dude! Please stop destroying America.
And the stuff on theistic scepticism? Have religious folk finally discovered they can't evade the fact that all human knowledge save that of tautologies is possibly false and yet they STILL embrace theism? What happened to, "well, the sceptics would be right... good thing the existence of god solves all our problems!". Does Plantinga's "Our minds work great! They never could unless god made them that way!" not somehow seem perversely similar? How about "That could never have evolved...oh wait. Well, that certainly could never have evolved... OK, one more time..." Want to try your luck with the idea that life can't come from non-living stuff? You'll probably get by for about a decade with that one.
There are conceptions of god which don't offend my sensitivities, although really believing in any of them strikes me as perverse. Come on! There are some things we can't know. Don't try to conjure up justifications for belief structures which divide and stultify humanity. I wonder how many of you watch Democracy Now!

Mike:

I think we must have a different conception of what sceptical theism is. Here's how I see the dialectic:

Atheist: Consider the following description of a horrible evil E. If there were a God, we wouldn't expect E to happen, i.e., P(E|God&K) is very low relative to P(E|~GodvK), where K is a set of background conditions not including K or the existence of God. But E does happen. Hence, E provides evidence against the hypothesis that God exists.

Sceptical theist: We have no right to suppose that the conditional probability P(E|God) is very low. After all, there could be goods beyond our ken that would justify E.

Now, the sceptical theist cannot be assuming the occurrence of E in calculating P(E|God&K). For that is the probability of E given a set of background conditions, including the existence of God, that do not entail the existence of E. (If the background conditions entailed E, then P(E|God&K) would be 1.)

But you may be seeing the sceptical theist response as arising out of a different dialectic.

Alex,

The skeptical theists argument does assume E, where E is the following,

E= we observe no goods that would justify certain specific evils (e.g. Rowe's fawn or Russell's child).

I'm not sure why you're worried about the unconditional probability of E, which is in fact what we observe. I'm focusing on Rowe's version (you seem to be focusing on Draper's version), but it does not matter which version we focus on. Maybe what you are naming E is not what I named E above.

Yes, in my nomenclature, E is the death of the fawn, or Russell's child. (Typo in my comment: ~GodvK should be ~God&K.)

Alex, this is a little confusing. You say,

Yes, in my nomenclature, E is the death of the fawn, or Russell's child.

And yet you say,

Now, the sceptical theist cannot be assuming the occurrence of E in calculating P(E|God&K)

But certainly the probability that the fawn died (on k) is 1 , and the probabilty that we observe no God-justifying good for that event (on k) is 1, so the skeptical theist does assume the occurence of E. What am I missing?

Yes, there is the problem of old evidence. I am assuming K is the background without the data that the fawn died or other like data about evils.

But now I do see that what I said doesn't fit neatly into the standard dialectic that leads to the sceptical theist position. This means I need to do some harder work here.

Let me try, very briefly. The sceptical theist, I take it, thinks that discovering a new evil does not negatively affect the probability of God's existence. For either we can find God-justifying goods for that new evil or not. If we can, the discovery doesn't negatively affect the probability of God's existence. And if we can't, the discovery also doesn't negatively affect the probability of God's existence. The sceptical theist will make this move for any evil. In particular, should we somehow discover that hitherto our cognitive faculties were unreliable, according to the sceptical theist, this discovery of a new evil (the unreliability of our cognition) wouldn't affect the probability of God's existence. But the only way the sceptical theist can say this is if P(our faculties have been reliable|God exists,K) where K is neutral on whether our faculties have been unreliable, is inscrutable or at least not high.

On further reflection, I think what has gone wrong is that I've identified what I think is the upshot of sceptical theism--viz., that probabilities of what God would do are inscrutable--with what sceptical theism says, and I need to go back to the drawing board and carefully argue that what I think is the upshot is in fact entailed by sceptical theism. Thanks, Mike, for your patience.

Certainly part of the problem is that there really are two versions of the skeptical theist's argument. One that worries about the likelihood of God existing and the relative value of Pr(E/God) and Pr(E/Biological utility of pain), and one that worries about the probablity of God existing and the absolute value of Pr(God/E & k). There are different assumptions in each.